I had a dream the other night about the garbage
being full. It was such a strange dream for me. I don’t usually have, or
remember, dreams. Scholars would dispute whether we always do or don’t dream,
but for me, IF I dream, I rarely remember them. I am sure that age plays a
factor in remembering. As soon as my eyes crinkle open and I drag myself to a
sitting position, my thought processes turn to the day’s events. And that
sounds something like this: “God help me
today, I really need coffee, I need a shower to wake me up, I am hungry and oh,
yea, good morning, love.”
Once the day’s thoughts start floating in, all else
is history. I would be lucky to remember my name let alone a dream. The bible
talks about dreams in several places. We know that sometimes He uses dreams to
warn or guide us. In Acts 2:17 it says “‘And in the last days it shall be,
God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh, and your sons and
your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your
old men shall dream dreams;”I am not an old man, but I believe we all can have God given
dreams.
So that morning, I woke up so sullen and concerned.
I asked God what it meant but felt such a strong foreboding in my soul. He led
me back to our past discussions and sermons about people dumping their garbage
on us… or us on them. In my dream, I saw images of the garbage over flowing and
Him telling me that it is not over yet. I sensed this feeling that there was
nothing that I could do. And being a doer, I felt so weighted down by that. I
knew that more is yet to come and that we must be prepared. I still have no
real or practical answer to my question, “What does that mean?” All I can do is
be watchful and continue to give it to Him just as His Word says:
Psalm 55:22:
“Cast your burden on the Lord, and he will
sustain you; he will never permit the righteous to be moved.”
We all carry garbage. We even share it with others,
whether they like it or not, as if they don’t carry enough weight of their own.
We live in an environment where we are usually very openly broken, wounded and desperately
trying to heal. But sometimes, we don’t
want others to know that we still have garbage that we are dealing with. We
would probably like to scream and yell and get it all out without repercussions
but we never feel that secure, do we? After all, depending on how long we have
been here, we ALL still have garbage that we are trying to work through.
But garbage is simply the wounds and hurt inside us
that poisons our spirits and MUST be rooted out. This is why we continue to
struggle with the same issues over and over again. We are not doing the work to
uproot the real problem; to find out where the smell is coming from.
James 4: 1-2 says: “What
causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires
that battle within you? 2 You
desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you
want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God.”
Galatians 5:19-21 says: “Now the works of the flesh are evident:
sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife,
jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness,
orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those
who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.”
You see, even the simplest of ways that the garbage surfaces can damage your relationship with God and our destination. We try to conceal it, bury it and pretend that we are okay. We have different reasons for pretending. We want to appear ‘together’ or ‘strong.’ Some of us pretend because we don’t want anyone else to get hurt by it or try to carry the weight of it for us. Some of us pretend because we don’t want anyone else to know that we still struggle with sin and unforgiveness. Some of us foolishly believe that we are ‘beyond that’ because of our position, our years, our level of salvation… whatever it is, it is all just a lie. We all struggle against the principalities of this world daily.
Ephesians 6:11-12: “ Put on the full armor of
God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. For we do not wrestle against flesh and
blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic
powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the
heavenly places”
But garbage has a way of smelling, doesn’t it? It
just plain stinks. And no matter how we try to hide it, the stench of it
permeates our very souls. We can only bare it so long before it starts to seep
out. If you need a visual, it is kind of like a rotting piece of fruit basking
in the Light. Eventually, it bloats with the chemical rot and starts to ooze
out. It festers like a wound. It will escape any way that it can.
People will handle their garbage in different ways.
We might let it out when we think no one is looking. We may let it out when we
think we are with someone who shares the same level of garbage that we do. We
dump it out in a negative way on those that we think are less deserving than we
are. There is someone you hold beneath your opinion of yourself and you enjoy
dumping on them. You get pleasure out of digging the needle in because they
seem to have it together, or they seem to be falling apart or they…fill in the
blanks. We use our words, our emotions and our actions to let it seep out a
little at a time. Or in the best of times, we utilize the Teen Challenge
training programs to dig deeper, find out where it came from and replace the
lies and poisonous trash with God’s truth. But we don’t all do that 100% of the
time, do we? We are, after all, human. We are cautioned by the Word of God
though aren’t we?
Ephesians 4:31-32: “Get
rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with
every form of malice. 32 Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving
each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.”
We cannot hide the stench of our wounds, our garbage.
Least of all, we cannot hide it from others who are living with it and know
what that looks like. It comes out in sinful ways. It erupts in dark thoughts
and words and deeds that are not of God. The bible tells us that the eyes are
the lamp of your body.
Matthew 6:22-24:“The eye is the lamp of the body. If your
eyes are healthy,[a] your
whole body will be full of light. 23 But
if your eyes are unhealthy,[b] your
whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness,
how great is that darkness! 24 “No
one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or
you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God
and money.”
Ephesians
5:12-13: “It
is shameful even to mention what the disobedient do in secret.13 But everything exposed
by the light becomes visible—and everything that is illuminated becomes a
light.”
You think you can handle it but in reality, it is
only weighing you down and making your heart heavier. The bottom line is, you
truly need to take out your own garbage. I know just the place for it!
1 Sam 2:8: “He raises the poor
from the dust and lifts the needy from the garbage pile. He seats them with noblemen
and gives them a throne of honor. For the foundations of the earth are the
Lord's; He has set the world on them.”
The bible tells us to love others as our selves. I
say, love others MORE than yourselves. We must dig deeper to learn what our
garbage is and why we haven’t burned it out yet. We need to seek counsel and
look to God and our staff to walk through whatever it is that makes us permeate
the putrid smell of poison. Stop believing the lies of the devil who wants you
to believe that you are better or worse or never going to change.
Listen, here is some thoughts about your garbage
that might help you put it in perspective and deal with it in small doses.
- Don’t wait until it piles up. Take it out one piece at a time
- Write a secret journal of all of the junk in your garbage.
- Pick one piece that is causing the most problems and pick it apart.
- Ask yourself:
a. Who
caused it?
b. What
happened to make it painful?
c. When
did this happen?
d. Where
did this start?
e. Why
did I buy into this?
f. How
trustworthy is their perspective?
Then
ask yourself:
a. Who
can I turn to? GOD! Psalms
147: 3
b.
What can I replace it with? The
Truth/Scripture Romans 15:4
c. When
will I be healed from this? Ask Matthew 7:7
d. Where
do I search for answers? The Bible 2 Timothy 3:16
e. Why
was it so hard to remove it? Unforgiveness Hebrews 12:15
f. How
do I move forward? Trust 2 Timothy 1:7
Psalm 147:3: “He heals the brokenhearted
and binds up their wounds.”
Romans 15:4: “For whatever was written in former days was written
for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of
the Scriptures we might have hope.”
Matthew 7:7: "Ask and it
will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened
to you.”
2 Timothy 3:16 “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for
reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness,”
Hebrews 12:15: “See to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God and
that no bitter root grows up and causes you trouble, or many of you will become
defiled”
